The Senior Specialist Early Childhood Development will lead and manage Save the Children’s ECD portfolio in Puerto Rico. Save the Children’s ECD program focuses on children ages 0 – 6 and their caregivers. Programs will include components of nutrition, including infant and young children feeding best practices, early literacy and numeracy, and other approaches to the development needs of ECD aged children. Our ECD programming focuses on supporting children, caregivers and community members to be active participants in the social, emotional, and educational wellbeing of children, starting from birth. Additionally, the program aims to support the targeted families and communities in Puerto Rico’s to be able to bounce back following shocks, like natural disasters, by enhancing coordination and strengthening community-based, local level, and common-wealth early child care and development systems. The Program Manager will be responsible for program implementation, budget oversight and management, and staff development and management. This position will report to the Director, Puerto Rico.
Areas of Responsibility:
Program Management
- Manage the overall implementation of interventions related to early childhood development, including nutrition, early education, and distribution of development materials to daycares, nutrition centers, and communities.
- Closely monitor budget spending and forecasts for the overall ECD portfolio budget.
- Identify key stakeholders and develop relationships to support scale up of the program implementation, as aligned with and contributing to the overall strategic objectives of the emergency and recovery program.
- Identify and support local partners to implement early childhood education and nutrition projects, and ensure appropriate levels of technical assistance and capacity building is provided to partners to support in quality programming.
- Coordinate and collaborate closely with program managers of other technical sectors to ensure integration and delivery of holistic programs to targeted communities.
- Contribute to technical design of projects and serve as the Puerto Rico subject matter expert on early education and nutrition programs.
- Prepare timely program and donor reports for ECD projects in compliance with internal SC requirements and any relevant external donor requirements.
- Coordinate with US Programs to ensure that all required support needs are identified and technical support is requested based on need.
Proposal Development
- Work closely with the Director to monitor changes in local context and identify needs that can be strategically addressed through Save the Children’s early childhood development portfolio.
- Participate in conceptualizing and designing cost effective, innovative and high-quality programs reaching targeted beneficiaries within the education portfolio, in collaboration with the program team and under the direction of the Deputy Director of Programs.
- Support fundraising for ECD program, including providing input into the development of high quality concept notes, proposals, and budgets.
Team Management and Capacity Building
- Ensure that ECD team staffing structure is in line with project requirements to ensure delivery of high quality programs within the project period.
- Manage and provide overall leadership and guidance to the ECD team members.
- Assess training needs within the ECD team and develop a capacity building plan.
- Support the education team members in establishing clear, measurable performance objectives and development plans.
- Provide regular constructive feedback to direct reports, following Save the Children’s performance management procedures.
- Supervision of a team of junior level staff
Coordination and Representation
- Help establish, maintain, and improve active and regular working relationships with government agencies, partner agencies (including donors and sub-grantees), and federal relief agencies.
- Ensure that Save the Children's work is coordinated with efforts of other agencies, ensuring the specific needs of children are being addressed, and represent Save the Children in relevant coordination forums.
- Ensure community acceptance and maintain engagement with local government (e.g. municipalities and representatives of ministries). Liaise with the relevant external stakeholders and manage community engagement initiatives.
Monitoring and Evaluation
- Work closely with the MEAL team to ensure the effective monitoring and evaluation of ECD projects, including projects implemented through partners.
- Working closely with the MEAL to put in place accountability measures, ensuring that feedback from all relevant stakeholders is considered throughout the project cycle.
- Assist MEAL team in designing evaluation methods and collecting and monitoring project data.
- Regularly review progress of projects against program objectives and indicators, and ensure relevant plans are in place to address under-achieved indicators.
- Support internal and external program/project evaluations as necessary in coordination with the MEAL team, and ensure project learning is captured and integrated into current and future projects.
General
- Comply with Save the Children policies and practice with respect to child safeguarding, code of conduct, health and safety, equal opportunities and other relevant policies and procedures.
- Support the development of an organizational culture that reflects our dual mandate values, promotes accountability and high performance, encourages a team culture of learning, creativity and innovation, and frees up our people to deliver outstanding results for children and excellent customer service for our members and donors.
- Perform other responsibilities as agreed with your line management.
Educational Background:
Bachelor Degree in early child education, child development, public health, or related field in a relevant subject.
Skills/Experience:
Accountability:
- Holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values
- Holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities - giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved
Ambition:
- Sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves (and their team), takes responsibility for their own personal development and encourages others to do the same
- Widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others
- Future orientated, thinks strategically
Collaboration:
- Builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, members and external partners and supporters
- Values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength
- Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to
Creativity:
- Develops and encourages new and innovative solutions
- Willing to take disciplined risks
Integrity:
- Honest, encourages openness and transparency
Required Qualifications
- Minimum 5-7 years’ experience in project management of early childhood education, health and nutrition, or child development programs.
- Excellent English and Spanish communication skills, both written and verbal.
- Experience and skills in working and advocating with government agencies, donors and other stakeholders.
- Experience working with other NGOs, coordinating inter-agency activities, developing strategies and information products.
- Ability to identify the main gaps in education services in the given context to inform a holistic response for children.
- Previous experience managing teams, including staff training and capacity building of organizational staff and partner staff.
- An initiative-taking, proactive, inspiring attitude with the ability to manage and prioritize an unpredictable workload and solve problems quickly with needed support.
- Experience of delivering training, presentations and other capacity building activities to varied audiences.
- Politically and culturally sensitive with qualities of patience, tact and diplomacy; ability to build relationships quickly with a wide variety of people.
- Patience, adaptability, flexibility, and ability to improvise and remain responsive and to communicate clearly and effectively under pressure.
- Commitment to the aims and principles of Save the Children.
Preferred Qualifications
- Previous experience implementing humanitarian or development programs
- A Master’s degree in early child education, child development, public health or a related field.
Compensation/Benefits:
- Meaningful work, with a knowledge that you are changing the lives of children all around the world
- A family friendly work environment
- Highly collaborative and innovative teams
- Structured and formalized management development and coaching programs for mid and senior level managers
- Extensive e-learning opportunities on a variety of topics offered through our affiliation with several prestigious universities and with the American Management Association, as well as language learning opportunities
Job Function:
Organization Info
Listing Stats
Post Date:
May 7 2018
Active Until:
Jun 8 2018
Hiring Organization:
Save the Children US
industry:
Nonprofit